Tuesday, December 09, 2014

Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

"The brutal techniques deployed by the CIA’s interrogation teams including waterboarding, sleep and food deprivation and mock executions were derived from Cold War manuals that had long been discredited, the report says. In 1989 the CIA’s own reviews of the 'inhumane' techniques concluded that those kinds of interrogations were 'counterproductive because they do not produce intelligence and will probably result in false answers.' However despite this finding the report says the CIA deployed the so-called 'enhanced interrogation techniques' in a 'near non-stop fashion for days or weeks at a time'." (TheTelegraph)

"

"Regarding the Rolling Stone story. I did a story on campus rape policy for the magazine in June. I couldn't even use all the incidents shared by women, almost all willing to go on the record. It was factchecked and has never been challenged. Read it below, if interested. The problem is that we dont treat rape the way we do other felonies. The stigma is on victims, they hide, and hiding leads to the kind of mess we see unfolding now. I can only say that the RS editors are some of the best I've ever worked with." (Nina Burleigh)

"Mary Landrieu’s defeat last weekend marked a final, anticlimactic end to an epoch in American politics. After Landrieu’s defeat, Republicans now control every state legislature and governorship in the Deep South. The only states anywhere in the former Confederacy where Democrats hold a governorship or a Senate seat are Virginia and Florida — both of which, as Nate Cohn points out, have a majority of residents born outside those states. Democrats had pinned their hopes on a series of scions — Mark Pryor, Mary Landrieu, Michelle Nunn, Jason Carter — whose fathers had won in an era when Democrats carried those states, in the hopes of summoning their expired familial loyalties. It is possible to view the decline of southern Democrats as a tragedy born of error. Kevin Baker, writing in the New York Times last month, lamented the Democrats’ loss of their ancestral heartland as the product of a misguided abandonment of economic populism. The real anomaly is that the Democrats managed to hold out in the Deep South so very, very long." (Jonathan Chait)

"Last night, on my way to dinner, I stopped by Creel & Gow on East 70th Street between Park and Lexington Avenue where its proprietors, Jamie Creel and Christopher Gow were hosting a book signing reception for Marella Caracciolo Chia and her new book about her aunt Marella Agnelli. It is called 'Marella Agnelli: The Last Swan,' and was co-authored by the lady in the title herself. It’s a personal memoir, and a coffee table book (Rizzoli, Publishers) and contains a never-seen-before tour through Sra. Agnelli’s homes and gardens, as well as her memories of her life, her family and friends. It is an extraordinary volume of beauty that is a gift to any eyes. The book is Sra. Agnelli’s fourth book and her third with her niece, who is a respected journalist (she writes for Architectural Digest and is a contributing European editor for the New York Times T Magazine ... Last Thursday night, Bloomberg Businessweek held its 85th anniversary celebration hosted by Michael Bloomberg at the American Museum of Natural History. The event celebrated the most disruptive ideas in business over the last 85 years, the success of Bloomberg Businessweek’s 2010 relaunch at Bloomberg under editor Josh Tyrangiel. Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga performed songs from their #1 album Cheek to Cheek for guests and Seth Meyers was the Master of Ceremonies. " (NYSD)